Heretofore, a carburetor system or injection valve system has been provided for controlling fuel supplied to internal combustion engines.
In these days, however, for the purpose of saving fuel consumption and reducing the amount of detrimental components in the exhaust, it has gained an importance to atomize fuel supplied from the above-mentioned fuel supply devices.
As means for atomizing fuel, there have been proposed fuel atomizers using ultrasonic vibrators, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,019,683 and 4,237,836.
Such a fuel atomizer using a ultrasonic vibrator is designed to apply vibrations of the ultrasonic vibrator through a vibration amplifier member to a hollow tubular vibrating reed, which is fixed at the distal end of the vibration amplifier member.
In the fuel atomizer of this type, there is a significant problem in methods of fixing the vibrating reed to the vibration amplifier member. The above-mentioned prior patents disclose the method that the vibrating reed and the vibration amplifier member are formed simultaneously by casting, or that the vibrating reed is fixedly fastened to the vibration amplifier member by means of bolts.
However, the method resorting to casting accompanies a problem that the mold structure is complicated, and a porosity is formed in the interior of the cast, thus resulting in reduced mechanical strength, while the method resorting to bolts accompanies a problem that some minute gap inevitably remains between the vibrating reed and the vibration amplifier member, whereby the vibration energy will be atttenuated or the vibrating reed will eventually slip off.